I think the question is better defined if we assume a collection has variation. Six identical steak knives isn’t a collection. It could be the beginning of a party, but it’s not a collection. The degree of difference is also an important component.
I have a friend who has a collection of Peterson’s “Field Guide to the Birds.” Each copy is essentially the same, but one is hard cover with gold leaf edges. Another is a limited printing bound in leather with uncut pages. Others are the 1st through 5th editions, while others are mud stained from use and the last is the large print edition. It is the variation among the books that makes it a collection.
I can speak from experience: I have a similar collection of Sherlock Holmes books in my possession. Sherlock’s knife connection? Holmes uses a jack knife to fix his correspondence to the fireplace mantle. In modern England, he would be hard pressed to find a legal knife to pin his correspondence anywhere.
One day my wife realized she had a nice little cheese knife collection growing in the kitchen drawer.
The Arthurian cheese knife plunged into a block of cheese reads FROMAGE, or French for cheese. No surprise the blade is marked “Le Chef Sympa”. We bought that one on our way to the Finger Lakes region in NY. (Wineries were not on our tour, but the Corning glass museum was and is still an excellent destination.)
Knife number two is unknown; the blade is stamped with a simple “Stainless – Taiwan”. She got it from her mother, but it is not by any stretch of imagination an heirloom.
Knife number three is all plastic and we think we bought it at Cheese Haven in Port Clinton. We were on our way back from Camp Perry and I needed to stock up on fermented cow’s milk.
The fourth knife is another all plastic mystery knife. We bought it at a kitchen store on a trip to somewhere. Kind of tells you how impressed we are with it.
The last knife is made by Rada. It has a brushed aluminum handle which gives me the shivers every time I pick it up. It’s a little gruesome looking. If the blade were a little thicker you’d swear it was designed by Klingons for interrogating prisoners.
Which knife cuts the cheese the best? (Actually I wrote all of this so I could use that line.) The honors go to the untouchable Rada and mystery knife number 3.
